The New York Post: Trump calls on NATO allies to pay up

President Donald Trump listens during a joint news conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in 2017.

Days before he heads to Europe for a meeting with NATO allies, President Donald Trump continued to hector members of the alliance for not paying their fair share of defense costs and called on them to “do much more.”

“The United States is spending far more on NATO than any other Country. This is not fair, nor is it acceptable ,” the president posted on Twitter Monday. “While these countries have been increasing their contributions since I took office, they must do much more. ”

Trump also said while the U.S. dedicates the bulk of the funding to the 69-year-old organization, Europe gets a lot more out of it than America.

“Germany is at 1%, the U.S. is at 4%, and NATO benefits Europe far more than it does the U.S. By some accounts, the U.S. is paying for 90% of NATO, with many countries nowhere close to their 2% commitment,” he said. “On top of this the European Union has a Trade Surplus of $151 Million with the U.S., with big Trade Barriers on U.S. goods. NO!”

The tweets come as the president prepares to leave Tuesday for Brussels where he’ll meet with NATO leaders, many of whom are also battling Trump over trade tariffs.

The Trump administration last month sent sternly worded letters to a number of NATO members – including Belgium, Norway, Canada and Germany – warning them that they must live up to a commitment made during a 2014 summit in Wales to spend at least 2% of their gross domestic product on defense in the next 10 years.

Only eight of the group’s 29 members are expected to meet that goal this year – the US, Britain, Greece, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Romania and Lithuania.